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Friday, December 02, 2011

"I'm not Asian"...

Increasing numbers of Asian-American college applicants understand the odds are stacked against them, and react by not declaring their ethnicity or (in the case of mixed race applicants) checking any box but Asian.

I'm Not Asian (AP): Lanya Olmstead was born in Florida to a mother who immigrated from Taiwan and an American father of Norwegian ancestry. Ethnically, she considers herself half Taiwanese and half Norwegian. But when applying to Harvard, Olmstead checked only one box for her race: white.

For years, many Asian-Americans have been convinced that it's harder for them to gain admission to the nation's top colleges.

... The way it works, the critics believe, is that Asian-Americans are evaluated not as individuals, but against the thousands of other ultra-achieving Asians who are stereotyped as boring academic robots.

Now, an unknown number of students are responding to this concern by declining to identify themselves as Asian on their applications.

For those with only one Asian parent, whose names don't give away their heritage, that decision can be relatively easy. Harder are the questions that it raises: What's behind the admissions difficulties? What, exactly, is an Asian-American — and is being one a choice?

Olmstead is a freshman at Harvard and a member of HAPA, the Half-Asian People's Association. In high school she had a perfect 4.0 grade-point average and scored 2150 out of a possible 2400 on the SAT, which she calls "pretty low."

College applications ask for parent information, so Olmstead knows that admissions officers could figure out a student's background that way. She did write in the word "multiracial" on her own application.

Still, she would advise students with one Asian parent to "check whatever race is not Asian."

"Not to really generalize, but a lot of Asians, they have perfect SATs, perfect GPAs, ... so it's hard to let them all in," Olmstead says.

Amalia Halikias is a Yale freshman whose mother was born in America to Chinese immigrants; her father is a Greek immigrant. She also checked only the "white" box on her application.

"As someone who was applying with relatively strong scores, I didn't want to be grouped into that stereotype," Halikias says. "I didn't want to be written off as one of the 1.4 billion Asians that were applying."

"The whole Tiger Mom stereotype is grounded in truth," says Tao Tao Holmes, a Yale sophomore with a Chinese-born mother and white American father. She did not check "Asian" on her application.

"My math scores aren't high enough for the Asian box," she says. "I say it jokingly, but there is the underlying sentiment of, if I had emphasized myself as Asian, I would have (been expected to) excel more in stereotypically Asian-dominated subjects."

"I was definitely held to a different standard (by my mom), and to different standards than my friends," Holmes says. She sees the same rigorous academic focus among many other students with immigrant parents, even non-Asian ones.

Does Holmes think children of American parents are generally spoiled and lazy by comparison? "That's essentially what I'm trying to say."

Asian students have higher average SAT scores than any other group, including whites. A study by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade examined applicants to top colleges from 1997, when the maximum SAT score was 1600 (today it's 2400). Espenshade found that Asian-Americans needed a 1550 SAT to have an equal chance of getting into an elite college as white students with a 1410 or black students with an 1100.

Top schools that don't ask about race in admissions process have very high percentages of Asian students. The California Institute of Technology, a private school that chooses not to consider race, is about one-third Asian. (Thirteen percent of California residents have Asian heritage.) The University of California-Berkeley, which is forbidden by state law to consider race in admissions, is more than 40 percent Asian — up from about 20 percent before the law was passed.

Steven Hsu, a physics professor at the University of Oregon and a vocal critic of current admissions policies, says there is a clear statistical case that discrimination exists.

"The actual dynamics of how it happens are really quite subtle," he says, mentioning factors like horse-trading among admissions officers for their favorite candidates.

Also, "when Asians are the largest group on campus, I can easily imagine a fund-raiser saying, 'This is jarring to our alumni,'" Hsu says. Noting that most Ivy League schools have roughly the same percentage of Asians, he wonders if "that's the maximum number where diversity is still good, and it's not, 'we're being overwhelmed by the yellow horde.'"

... Kara Miller helped read applications for the Yale admissions office when she was an undergraduate there, and participated in meetings where admissions decisions were made. She says it often felt like Asians were held to a higher standard.

"Asian kids know that when you look at the average SAT for the school, they need to add 50 or 100 to it. If you're Asian, that's what you'll need to get in," says Miller, now an English professor at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.

... Hsu, the physics professor, says that if the current admissions policies continue, it will become more common for Asian students to avoid identifying themselves as such, and schools will have to react.

"They'll have to decide: A half-Asian kid, what is that? I don't think they really know." ...

154 comments:

ziel
said...

How are Asian alumni viewed with regard to "giving back"? If there's a sense that they're not too generous, that would certainly put a damper on admissions. I'm guessing that one of the big door-openers for Jews was that fund-raisers found that contrary to stereotype they were actually fairly generous.

"College applications ask for parent information, so Olmstead knows that admissions officers could figure out a student's background that way. She did write in the word 'multiracial' on her own application."

So crafty. I love it! Admissions jiu jitsu. But with the huge number of white-Asian marriages, how long until applicants are asked, Apartheid-style, to identify their parents' ethnicities as well?

Soon the schools will have to do more detective work to get to the truth. Work that will make McCarthy proud. Maybe we will be asked to submit our DNA results and will have a sliding scale based on the percentage of Asian genes you carry. Maybe there will be software that will get pictures of you from your facebook account and flag anyone with Asian features.

If universities are discriminating in this way by 'setting the bar higher' for Asian students, you'd expect those who make it will be more able, as a group, than those from other ethnic groups who only need to clear the 'normal' admissions bar. So you'd expect Asian students to outperform others at university exams. Are there data about this?

Universities are now doing to Asians what they once did to Jews. Of course it's far more subtle than out right quotas, but the idea is the same: put a cap on the highly qualified. If Asian applicants need an extra 100 points to qualify, then bear in mind that black students need 100 or 200 points less. Just being black is an enormous advantage.

Now Steve you supported Obama for president, and I presume voted for him. Having at least a little buyer's remorse? Blacks are an integral part of his coalition and he's committed to advancing their interests. Asian's aren't in that coalition, so don't expect any help from the Democrats. I hope Asians have more common sense than Jews and push for an end to AA.

Pretty inevitable that people will figure out what ethnicity will give them the best chance of admission. Presumably students with any hispanic or african ancestry would not want to check the white box.

In New Zealand if you have polynesian or Maori ancestry you gain a considerable advantage from that (scholarships, lower admission criteria, extra tutoring etc).

The best advice Steve could give is to stop complaining about discrimination, and start understanding why top colleges "discriminate" against Asians. The answer is that they have traits that college find counter productive to their goals. In short Asians are seen as:

1) Uncreative grinds with little independent drive.2) Less likely to rise to posistions of extreme power and influence (this is important to top colleges).3) Not as committed to alumni favoritism and donations.4) Not as good at the kind of verbal and soft skills necessary for #1.5) Their studying for SATs reduces the value of the SAT as a proxy for IQ, requiring Asian scores to be higher merely corrects their score to make it more like their base unaltered IQ.

Take Obama. Blacks have way worse scores, but a black was way more likely then an Asian to become president. Obama will do far more to help Harvard achieve its goals then a thousand corporate drone STEM Asians.

If you don't want to be discriminated against you have to find a way to alleviate these apprehensions colleges have.

I noticed that every single one of the examples given were of Eurasian-American women with a white father and Asian mother. As a Eurasian male, it really gets at me having a white dad, and yet being treated by American society as an Asian and foreigner. Having white people refer to Asians as "Uncreative grinds with little independent drive." and yet also having tons of Asian women marry white men who impose racism on Asian and Eurasian men like myself. So the Eurasian sons of white males, have to face all the discrimination that Asian males do, but do their white dads really identify with the cause of Asian-American males? My dad's not the worst white guy in the world, but I don't think he puts my interests as an Asian-American first.

I always think this must be especially hard for the Filipinos and more low IQ Asian minorities - the Chinese and to a lesser extent Koreans get pretty much all the Asian slots (because they outclass the Flips and other Asians by so much, and aren't competing with Whites of more comparable IQ), and are represented as far less decreased from their actual rate while the Flips are barred from competing with Black and White and Hispanic people of more comparable IQ and bear the brunt of it. :(

Comparing within a major doesn't seem to tough, surely? That should be sufficient unless for some reason quotas do not apply for tougher majors (feasible I guess, but suggests the problem is not that big, because the tough majors are (generally) the socially useful ones, the ones where grades are more important than personality to lifetime contribution and the ones with big returns to income).

It would be nice to have good data, even just looking at each class and the average grades: even if we'd expect there to be less of a selecting effect in the harder STEMs, if Asian students still outperform, that would be interesting. (I'm a Brit, so I don't have access to american anecdotal data ;) - and obviously, one can unconsciously filter the anecdotal evidence by prior beliefs).

The reason I ask is that there are common stereotypes along the lines of David Versaces comment ("They're all not-so-clever, uncreative strivers", etc.) Showing that the Asian students who do get in generally do better supports the discrimination model over the 'correcting-for-them-gunning-standardized-tests' etc. model.

Another, harder comparison would be comparing California schools which don't adjust by race compared to those that do, and see what happens.

Being an Asian guy sucks. By contrast if you were a half white half Asian female you would be seen as incredibly hot and in demand. Newsflash, the world is unfair. Its unfair for reasons that are unlikely to change, or at least change rapidly. You can merely cope with them as best as possible.

Obama realized if he wore a suit and talked white he could get white people to like him, despite all the baggage of being black. Similarly, if you try to act in ways that counter Asian male stereotypes you might be able to alleviate them, at least to a certain extent in some situations at a personal level.

I doubt that an Asian lobby is really going to be successful at getting Asian affirmative action (or reverse AA or whatever you want to call it). Leaving aside the political difficulties, elite institutions don't really support AA for any of the stated purposes. They want leaders. Partly they want leaders of different races because people will follow someone the same color as them more easily and they want to increase the influence of their institution (just ask a used car dealer, you want to salesmen to be the same race as the buyer). But also I think they know that low IQ races like blacks also have cultural characteristics that are good for leadership* (charisma, confidence, tall and good looking, alpha). So if they can find blacks that meet some minimum functional IQ threshold they snap them up. Not to be nice, but because it helps them achieve their goals. And Obama is proof of it.

Instead of seeing it as a political problem, see it as perceived deficiencies that, real or not, you have to deal with.

*When I say good at leadership I mean good at gaining power and using it to benefit yourself and your allies, including the elite institutions you came from and their graduates. Its best to think of these institutions as libertine, and their view on power purely pragmatic, even if in practice there is some desire to lead the world for the better the final result of most political processes is more crass then any ideal. So whether you think Obama was a good leader or not is secondary to the fact that he became a leader and that benefited Harvard.

The data I have see show that white/Asian grades are similar within errors (IIRC Asian grades were slightly higher). But Asians are disproportionately in STEM majors, and our UO data shows that STEM courses have lower average grades (less grade inflation) and are harder (the typical student has higher SAT and HS GPA than other majors). In humanities and social science courses taken by both STEM and non-STEM majors, the STEM majors get higher grades. If you put these things together it seems to say that Asians are actually stronger students at the college level, not just in HS.

Well for me personally the best thing I can do to break Asian male stereotypes is by not having Confucian filial piety, and being a bad son both in person, and by informing the world of how terrible it is to be the son of a white male and Asian female.

Also Asians HAVE been following the mode minority Booker T Washington approach of not politicizing their issues, and just working hard and trying to be good Americans. Blacks are the ones who have seen their issues as political issues, and it has worked for them. White conservatives don't treat us at white, yet they're always giving us great advice on not falling into the traps of blacks and latinos in reseting the white man.

Asian women and white men who marry, help make the world worse for Asian males and lower their status. And yet they have a 50% chance of having Eurasian males as the "Cute hapa babies" they want so much. Then the children do not inherit any of the white privileges of the white dad. Its not just life being unfair, it is specific individuals, mainly hapa sons' own parents, who create the unfairness. All I can do is break Confucian traditional Asian values by being the crappiest son imaginable.

Come on. Obama is such an outlier that including him in any discussion about affirmative action is meaningless. It's like mentioning Paris Hilton in a discussion about the estate tax; it's not a realistic example of anything.

1 is just an awful stereotype that, in my experience, has no basis in reality; actually, I seem to remember Harold Bloom once saying that his best students were Asian-Americans, so it's not only my experience. 2-5 are suppositions that I intuitively suspect are bogus. How can Asian-Americans alleviate apprehensions that are not rooted in any facts? It's not like Harvard, Yale et al. are in any way open or transparent about what they look for in students; I do think they have a "type," but it's amorphous and counterintuitive for middle-class types (e.g. most Asian-Americans) who naively believe that top schools would want the most eager, intelligent, academically-oriented, hardest-working students.

So interesting that I'm sure you'll look more into it to see if Steve Hsu has a point and if you find that he's actually right you'll immediately become a man of principle and speak out against anti-Asian discrimination to elite undergraduate universities.

By dint of sheer numbers alone, it is obvious that there are vastly more high IQ whites than Asians in America, and that the large Asian presence in elite universities is necessarily a function of something other than a relatively modest IQ advantage. It seems hard to see how one can logically escape the conclusion that this other factor is motivation, and that high IQ Whites are not motivated to anything near the same degree as high IQ Asians. This would fit in quite nicely with the general crisis in motivation that has been observed all across the West, and the rise in motivation and activity that has been observed across East Asia. Even if one wishes to single out some other factor, it is still perfectly obvious that Asians are over-represented in elite universities based on IQ alone. Only the most fervent racial sympathies would blind one to this fact.

The lack of Asian business or political leaders is not what is crippling to Asian intellectual reputation, it is the lack of rising intellectual stars, or of intellectual leaders in most fields, that is what does so much to tarnish the reputation of the Asian intellect in this country. Our elite schools have been filled to the brim with Asians for at least 2 decades now, and the results for our national intellectual life have hardly seemed a worthwhile return. This is a serious problem for us. Conversely, two decades after Jews were allowed into higher education in Western countries they filled many of the highest ranks in nearly all intellectual fields and contributed massively to their countrys intellectual life. Yet if you subtracted the Asian component from the intellectual life of America you would hardly notice it - and this is a serious problem that even most fervent believer in Asians getting a raw deal must admit creates a serious connundrum in college admissions. The unanticipated problem that we as a scoiety now have is that the tools that we used to predict future intellectual eminence amongst whites and Jews have broken down when it comes to Asians. When it comes to Asians, we are dealing with a new quality of intellect that does not seem to work by the same rules. We need to acknowledge this and figure out why this is so, but considering the national taboo on discussions of race and intellect, and the damper this puts on serious research into the subtelties of the issue, it seems like wishful thinking that we will honestly face this question anytime soon. Meanwhile, though, universities are adapting to this reality in furtive and concealed ways.

And yet as long as we continue to use these tools, it is grossly unfair to discriminate against Asians, and one can see why they are so bitter. They do everything great on paper, so why should they not get the same treatment? No one can admit that their performance on paper does not correlate to future success the same way it does for whites, so no one can give them a fair and clear answer. And the fact is that it is not Asians fault that our tools are inadequate - it is our responsibility to design better tools. Whites have to admit that as long as we employ the same tools Asians are right to be bitter if we discriminate against them. And Asians have to admit that they are occupying places in our schools that as a group they are not justifying by future contributions to intellectual life, and that this raises legitimate questions about their stats on paper that have to be taken seriously.

This is far from compelling evidence. Many have observed that there are sound economic and social factors for ambitious people to avoid STEM majors, and it is likely that Asian proclivity for STEM is based on notions of prestige that are specific to Asian culture, at least these days.

"Many have observed that there are sound economic and social factors for ambitious people to avoid STEM majors, and it is likely that Asian proclivity for STEM is based on notions of prestige that are specific to Asian culture, at least these days. "

I think that the most parsimonious explanation for Asian American over-representation in STEM is that East Asians excel significantly relative to Europeans at non-verbal and spatial reasoning. People generally tend to gravitate towards their personal strengths.

Well, much of this analysis is certainly correct. It's always seemed pretty obvious to me that East Asians are both smarter than whites and also more studious and harder-working than whites, and both of these factors certainly contribute to their remarkable academic over-performance.

I think one important difference between Asians and Jews is that while the former are less verbally-skewed and also less socially-aggressive than whites, the latter are much more verbally-skewed and also much more aggressive than whites. Given the structure of "celebrity" in today's American society, which includes academic eminence as a sub-category, verbal over-performance represents a crucial ingredient, as does aggressiveness.

As was claimed, it's certainly true that during the course of the 20th century American Jews achieved an astonishingly rapid rise to academic eminence, but it's also true that in very many of those cases such eminence was totally undeserved and proved utterly disastrous for the academic disciplines in question, with many of the ill effects still dominating today's scholarly landscape. Strong verbal skills and enormous aggressiveness constitute a powerful social weapon, but one which can be used both for good and for ill. Just consider that for decades S.J. Gould ranked as one of America's most "eminent" natural scientists...

And regarding the main issue of this blog-posting, I actually spent a bit of time investigating the matter a couple of years ago, and found indications of what might be extremely powerful "smoking gun" evidence regarding admissions. Unfortunately, I've been too busy with other things to finish my analysis or write up the results, but perhaps I'll be able to do so in the near future.

I would agree with you in the absence of strong economic and social factors pushing ambitious people away from STEM (less money than law or business, less opportunity for eventual political power, less glamour, and less appeal to the opposite sex), but the presence of such factors makes a strong case for considering them as the determining ones. So in this case it does not seem at all certain to me that the most parsimonious explanation is that East Asians excel in non-verbal reasoning. But I am open to the possibility that it might be the correct explanation.

One more thing in reply to Steve - In humanities and social science courses taken by both STEM and non-STEM majors, the STEM majors get higher gradesThis could also be because STEM selects for people with a better work ethic.

"Conversely, two decades after Jews were allowed into higher education in Western countries they filled many of the highest ranks in nearly all intellectual fields and contributed massively to their countrys intellectual life."

The Jews were mostly absent from intellectual life in the West for hundreds of years before blossoming in the late 1800s. If you are referring to Jews who immigrated to the US during the period of World War 2, it's important to note that many of them were already established stars in the West prior to coming over to the United States from Europe. Only the most fervent racial sympathies would blind one to this fact.

You seem to be arguing that economic factors tend to shift otherwise qualified whites away from STEM fields and into more lucrative areas such as say business. But given that East Asians Americans are even more culturally obsessed with money and success than white Americans are, I fail to see how that would cause them to gravitate towards lower paying/less prestigious STEM positions.

I am referring precisely to that blossoming all across Europe in the 1800s after the Jews were officially emancipated and allowed to attend university and join the professional ranks. What happened when the Jews languished under legal handicaps is not particularly relevant.

As for the United States, I am referring to the Jewish contribution to national intellectual life that occurred after quotas were dropped, which means a bit after the 50s I believe, although Jewish contribution was strong even before quotas were dropped. The European Jewish immigrants who were already stars need to be considered in the European context, which essentially proves the same point.

The Jews provide an excellent and instructive parallel to Asians today, and we would be failing to take advantage of all the lessons it can teach us if we limited ourselves to only considering that aspect of the case that involves discrimination, which is the aspect most favored by certain people.

Honestly, I'm not too concerned that East Asian Americans have problems rising to positions of power and influence in American society in areas such as business and politics. The very same could probably be said for Westerners living in say Japan. Different societies have different cultural norms and it's not surprising that immigrant groups from other cultures don't always fit in to the native society extremely well. The social skills that required for success in one country obviously don't necessarily work within a different cultural context.

What's most important is that colleges stop blatantly discriminating against Asian Americans. Honestly, I feel your pain. I presume you were like my parents, someone who moved to the United States after the Cultural Revolution and who sacrificed a lot in order to make a better future for their children. It's very disappointing knowing that all of that sacrifice can be wasted because in the United States colleges will discriminate against your children simply based on the color of their skin.

Yes, that is exactly what I am arguing. My point applies mostly to whites avoiding STEM fields, not to Asians choosing STEM fields. Whites who would excel at STEM nevertheless choose to work in different fields. When I objected to what you offered as the most parsimonious explanation, I meant to the entire phenomenon of there being fewer whites than Asians in STEM (which must explain white absence, not just Asian presence).Asians choose STEM probably for a combination of 3 reasons a) Temperament 2) Better at it (compared to their performance in other fields) 3) Cultural prestige of STEM in Asian communities despite its lower pay and glamour in the white community.

It only sucks in this country at this point of time. It sucked much more 100 years ago. It may not suck as much in not too distant future. Great powers rose and fell throughout history. US is no exception. I've witnessed with my own eyes during my twenty or so years of stay in this country how it was gradually turned into a Hispanic nation, which is fine with me because I've never, nor will I ever feel loyal to this country as long as Asian Americans (such as my children) are still treated as second class citizen. The status of Asian American in this country will always depend on the status of (East) Asian in Asia as a whole.

The analogy is not quite apt. 2nd generation Asians are perfectly Americanized, so a lack of cultural assimilation can not really be the explanation here.

I think you are being too harsh to America - it may not be perfectly fair, but America has offered a fantastically better life to most of the Asian immigrants who came here.

As for FanHsu, there is no reason to think that he is correct. An ambitious and highly intelligent son of a peasant in China has an infinitely lower chance of rising to political power in China than he has in America, I would say.

I don't want to venture too far into Sailer-esque conspiracies, but if Asians are going to blame "whites" for the discrimination against them in admissions, on the assumption that "whites" run the elite universities, shouldn't the criticism be further refined to specify "white" Jews? Anecdotally, I would say there are more Jews than white gentiles in the upper echelons of HYP et al. And didn't Prof. Hsu post some data suggesting that poor whites were actually more discriminated against than poor Asians? This issue is quite a bit more nuanced than "whites against Asians," in my opinion.

Second generation Asians are not perfectly Americanized, not even mixed race 2nd generation Asians. How can you expect them to when they are much more likely to be subjected to bullying, stereotyping and outright racism? My daughter told me the other day that on her way home, several white kids bullyed one Asian boy because they wanted him to show "Asian anger". I feel for my son because this type of bullying usually starts occurning in middle school.

The more caliber an Asian American has, the more difficult for him (usually it's him) to break the glass ceiling in this country (I am talking about very high ceiling such as CEO of a big company, or congressman/senator level, besically people who holds real power, this excludes eminent professors). This is because for Asian American of average or not too much above average caliber, the sorrounding white American don't feel they or their interests are threatened. For the very top Asian Americans, it is another story, their white peers will always have this subconsious "us" against "them" mentality and I won't be surprised that they (these top Asian Americans) will see much more nastiness. The only way to be the CEO of a company for an Asian American is pretty much limited to start the company by oneself and then make it big.

An ambitious and highly intelligent son of a peasant in China has small chance of rising to political poewr in China, true, but the chane is pretty much equally small for anyone since there are so many people with high caliber in China (the average Chinese leader is much smarter than the average American leader, I guarantee you. For example, compare Hu jintao with Obama, Hu graduated from the top university in China not through any kind of Affirmative action and would not hide his transcripts), but since there are so many peasants in China, throughout history the greatest emperors who started the new dynasty, and modern paramount leaders such as Mao and Deng, all came from peasant families. The chance of an Asian American in the US to become the US president, no matter how well connected he or his family is, is in fact "infinitely low". How can you expect this to happen, honestly, when US ranks so low in terms of upward mobility even for an average white american?

I actually agree with this. Being an Asian male in America is fine and no Asian male should feel dissatisfied with it, and the more intelligent and sophisticated white women (a small but visible percentage from this group), are perfectly happy to hook up with Asian guys. It is only the less classy white women who would never consider an Asian man. Besides, I am sure most Asian men are happy enough with Asian girls, so I do not see what the big deal is from a sexual POV.

And yet it is a fact that large numbers of Asian men are incredibly bitter about their sexual situation and general social status here. There are websites with names like bitterasianmen.com and similar things popping up all over the web, and I have frequently encountered incredible hostility and attempts at pointless one-upmanship from Asian American men when I have visited Asia, while local Asians have been nothing but polite and friendly.

I have never quite understood why, but Asian American men suffer from an acute and poisonous inferiority complex towards white men, and there does not seem to be any need for them to feel this way. Its childish. I get the feeling that Asians just feel that they are in some kind of competition with whites that they are losing, despite having a herculean work ethic and fantastic stats on paper. As if the gap between Asian self-perception and actual position when compared to whites (especially in intellectual fields, the major area Asians are competitive in) is fueling a bitterness based on a sense of unrewarded virtue. I think some of this bitterness would disappear if the Asian self-perception was adjusted in a more realistic direction.

America might not be perfectly fair, but dont you think your attitude should be one of gratitude that America took you in at all and offered you the chance of a better life? Tell me, is there a single Asian nation where a white would not be a *second class citizen*?

I just dont get it - sure, America is not perfectly fair, but on a relative scale it is so infinitely fairer than anywhere else. Yet it all it gets is ingratitude because it is not perfect.

I would suggest that your harsh ingratitude towards America is a psychological defense mechanism for your personal failures and those of your family. If your son did not get into an elite college, it was probably because he was just not good enough. Perhaps you should deal with that instead of allowing failures of a personal nature to distort your image of a country that has shown you exceptional generosity.

"I have never quite understood why, but Asian American men suffer from an acute and poisonous inferiority complex towards white men, and there does not seem to be any need for them to feel this way."

I would disagree. Most Asian American males in my generation consider themselves to be smarter than their white American male counterparts. On average, they also tend to be more successful in life. The only thing I've noticed recently is white American males being resentful of the superior success of Asian American males and attempting to compensate for this by attempting to assert their sexual superiority over Asian American males. I think there is an inferiority complex present, but you may be confused as to which group it is present in. ;)

I assume know who Hu Jintao is (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu_Jintao)

He came from a relatively poor family not much better than an average peasant, here is his early life described in wiki:Early life

Hu Jintao was born in Taizhou, Jiangsu on 21 December 1942. His branch of the family migrated from Jixi County of Anhui province to Jiangyan during his grandfather's generation. Official records therefore describe him as a native of Jixi[6] without mention of Jiangsu.

Though his father owned a small tea trading business in Taizhou, the family was relatively poor. His mother died when he was seven, and he was raised by an aunt. Hu's father was later denounced during the Cultural Revolution, an event that (together with his relatively humble origins) apparently had a deep effect upon Hu, who diligently tried to clear his father's name.[7]

Hu was a gifted student in high school, excelling in activities such as singing and dancing. In 1964, while still a student at Beijing's Tsinghua University, Hu joined the Communist Party of China (CPC), before the Cultural Revolution. He was the chairman of Tsinghua Student Union at that time. He graduated in hydraulic engineering in 1965. At Tsinghua, Hu met a fellow student Liu Yongqing, now his wife. They have a son and a daughter named Hu Haifeng and Hu Haiqing respectively.

In 1968, Hu volunteered for his service in Gansu and worked on the construction of Liujiaxia Hydroelectric Station[8] while also managing Party affairs for the local branch of the Ministry of Water Resources and Electric Power. From 1969 to 1974, Hu worked for Sinohydro Engineering Bureau, as an engineer.[9]

The Chinese wiki is much more detailed, here is a section describing his college career:大学时代

1959年9月，年仅16岁的胡锦涛以优异成绩考入清华大学水利工程系（今水利电力工程系）。由于这一届学生在1965年毕业，因而被称为“5字班”，包括胡锦涛在内的“5字班”的学生前面避开了1957年的“反右”和1958年的“大跃进”，后面躲过了1966年开始的“文革”，得以完整地接受了6年制本科教育。大学期间，胡锦涛结识了之后的夫人刘永清[4]，他和夫人刘永清当时是水利工程系同年级学生中年龄最小的两位。据称，他们品学兼优，待人真诚，与同学们相处得十分融洽。在校期间，胡锦涛是出名的高材生，大学6年，除一门功课4分外，其余全是满分5分。[5]Basically saying he went to the top university (Qianghua) in China at the age of 16, met his wife in college, and he was well known for his excellent academic ability, scored a perfect 5 out 5 for all courses except one.

Now for someone of his caliber but is an Asian American, what is his chance to be the president in this country?

You are just projecting here. It is far more gratifying to your ego to attribute the lack of Asian men in top business and leadership positions here to whites being threatened by them then to consider the very considerable evidence that whites are just better at these positions. There is a reason top Japanese companies have imported several white CEOs. I find your contention particularly untenable considering the state of race relations in America, where non-whites in positions of leadership are eagerly sought after. I also think that the fact that elite whites have opened the floodgates to non-white immigration provides clear evidence that they are hardly trapped in an *us* vs *them* mentality. Further, if elite whites were threatened by top Asian talent, you would think they would find a way to suppress even Asian-led companies from making it big, yet that has been far from the case.

All weak and nerdy kids get bullied, whether they are white, Jewish, or Asian, and it is a very unfortunate thing, yes, but you are allowing your cognitive biasses to distort your understanding of what is happening here. Instead of saying - my kid was bullied because he is weak and nerdy, you are choosing to believe that he was bullied because he was Asian. I know they specifically taunted him for being Asian, and that is a shitty thing to have to deal with, but bullies will always try to seize on any external thing they can in order to cause pain. Thats the nature of a bully. To see if Asian kids are disproportionately bullied we would have to have specific studies on that. Besides, even your example hardly exemplifies the national norm and cannot be used as the basis for the sweeping claim that there is widespread dislike of Asians in this country. In fact, I think it is palpably true that Asians are the least disliked minority group in America.

I never said an Asian has a good chance of becoming president in America - in fact his chances are quite low. I merely said they were higher than what they would be in China, and I stand by that. Barring a revolution in China, an un-connected Chinese peasant has almost zero chance of rising to a position of influence, whereas a an Asian in America has some chance, even if low.

Betraying your culture, yeah that might be part of the bargain. Essentially that's what I'm telling you. Betraying your culture some of the time might get your personal benefits. Its called a choice, you've got to make it. There are tradeoffs. Maybe if you bitch about it, those trade offs will go away. Oh wait, they won't. Just make a choice and live with it. I honestly don't think either any is the "right" choice.

I have no doubt most Asian American men consider themselves to be smarter on average than their white counterparts - it is precisely the gap between this self-perception and the reality of a world where whites dominate intellectually that is in my view what is fueling Asian feelings of bitterness.

Inferiority complexes always contain a large element of a sense of threatened superiority.

That is why I say that if Asians developed a more nuanced and realistic self-perception they might feel less bitter - but it is a fact readily documented across the web that this feeling of bitter inferiority to whites exist.

Although I would also admit that white nationalist types do indeed feel threatened by Asians.

Why is it any person that replies to you is a white nationalist. I haven't accused Steve Hsu of being an Asian nationalist. In fact he's been pretty objective about Asians situation in this country, and his advice not to check Asian on an application is sound.

I'm in the 99% percentile for IQ, so I'm smarter then the majority of Asians and not threatened. I also went to a 50% Asian high school for smart kids (avg SAT 1410/1600), and most of my friends in HS were Asian (the rest were Jews, almost no whites). I also lived in Asia for awhile during study abroad and was very close with my Asian family.

I'm saying these things because they are true. I've seen them over and over. I've listened to enough drunk Saturday night confessions from really smart Asian nerds to have an idea of what life is like for them.

Do I have a detailed report from my study of being inside a Harvard admissions committee. No. But I have read such reports, and I have talked to people at elite private sector firms that run recruiting (including an Asian HR rep that was an IB burnout), and I have some common sense. Anecdotely, everyone knows #5 is true. And I have firsthand experience with #5 because I studied like crazy in an Asian test prep style to raise my SAT score, and it worked. I also worked at an Asian tutoring company that taught SATs, and it worked.

Also, I respect Asian values. I think they are better then white values, well some of them at least. But the world isn't fair and doesn't give a shit about your values. I'm simply stating how the world works and what your options are.

Comparing yourself to your inferiors isn't the attitude of a man. I'm superior to most people because I have higher IQ. I don't measure my accomplishments against people 30-40 IQ points below me, I measure my accomplishments against other people with my same abilities and circumstances.

The reason Asian guys often have problems, even though they have higher average IQ, is because they look at guys that have the same IQ as them and they seem to be getting more of the things they want. They get more girls, make more money, go to more parties, etc.

Yeah, an Asian with 130 IQ is going to do better then a prole white with an IQ of 100. But who cares. What matters to him is a relatively lazy 120 IQ white is doing better then him. That's infuriating. Hell, it infuriates me. Do you think I like watching hard working Asians with strong cultural and family values get passed over by asshole whites? But you know what, the world doesn't give a fuck what I think. And it doesn't give a fuck what you think. It simply is as it is. So react to it.

"The reason Asian guys often have problems, even though they have higher average IQ, is because they look at guys that have the same IQ as them and they seem to be getting more of the things they want. They get more girls, make more money, go to more parties, etc. "

Big mistake. You're assuming that East Asians and Europeans are the same behaviorally and have the same set of needs/desires. Let me give you a concrete example. Remember that recent article about large numbers of Japanese men not being interested in sex?

More than a third of Japanese males aged between 16 and 19 have no interest in or are actively averse to sex, according to a government survey"While many people in the West were fascinated by this phenomenon, any HBD aware person would've known that on average East Asians tend to have lower sex drives relative to Europeans and Africans. It's clear then that on average East Asians are less obsessed with sex than their European or African counterparts. So while a white American male may be disappointed if he doesn't get a certain amount of action, it's certainly not necessarily the case that an identical situation would lead an East Asian male to be similarly disappointed. ;)I believe you and other white nationalist types have a tendency of projecting your own psychological attitudes onto others, which is particularly annoying. You assume incorrectly that others think as you do, have the same sets of values, desires, etc. I think this is why many white American males erroneously assume that East Asian males must be more embittered than they actually are(apart from of course thinking so as a defensive mechanism against feelings of resent/inferiority, etc)

Pushed out, or leaving the field to people they see as suckers for putting up with its boredom, drudgery, and low pay? (it is not my view that Asian Americans are suckers for being in STEM, but I know that many STEM-gifted whites STEM see it that way)

And as I pointed out, there are enough high IQ whites to fill every spot in the elite unis without a single Asian being present, so the presence of large numbers of Asians is clearly not a result of whites being unable to compete.

And of course, whites do continue to be the intellectu stars in most fields.

I agree that Asians SHOULD be disgruntled at the way our universities are run - we should have clear criteria for acceptance, and the best candidate should be accepted. Heck, I think the way we run our universities is retarded. I am merely pointing out that the Asian sense of bitterness towards whites, based on the websites and comments you see around the web, have a basis quite different than this disgruntlement with an admission system, which is an issue that Asians became conscious about fairly recently, too.

I don't think you fully appreciate how damaging a lack of success in the dating market is to one's happiness. Not everyone can just opt out and be content with a life of solitude, however comfortable it might be. It's hard enough to be a man as it is without having one's masculinity constantly ridiculed.

I think it depends. Read what I wrote about East Asians have lower sex drives on average relative to Europeans and Africans. It's fairly obvious to me that black and white men are far more obsessed with getting laid than East Asian men. See here.

I hear that black males are the best people to learn game from. ;) At least this is the impression I get from white nationalist types constantly droning on and on about the supposed alphaness of blacks. Now where's that Whiskey fellow again...

Apparently not, since I was under the impression that the SATs were fairly g-loaded and not significantly amenable to test prep. The Bell Curve cites some similar graphs showing how there are rapidly diminishing returns to both the SAT-M and SAT-V section from extensive hours of preparation.

" And I have firsthand experience with #5 because I studied like crazy in an Asian test prep style to raise my SAT score, and it worked. "

Apparently all that test prep never taught you how to think statistically. In a large population, extensive test prep may raise scores only by a tiny amount on average, but depending on the shape of the distribution of score increases, it's possible that extreme outliers exist. I would say that one data point is hardly evidence to generalize from.

I've been to Japan, 1/3 of men are not asexual. I can believe 1/3 of men think sex isn't worth the effort, but that isn't the same as being asexual. That's just giving up on something you want.

I can believe that Asians have a lower sex drive. HBD and all. But its certainly not even close to non-existent. I know there is a lot of jealousy and sexual desperation out there for Asian males. I've seen it and heard to too much to believe otherwise.

1) Whites are engaged in an elaborate racist conspiracy to screw Asians because they are afraid of them.

2) Asians aren't helping elite institutions achieve their goals, so they hold them to higher standards.

3) #2, but with a little stereotyping helping to push the process along.

I dunno, #1 sounds dumb. But let's say its true. It still doesn't change the actions available.

1) Form a political action group comprised of 5% of the population that has no history of effective political action and force nearly all elite institutions in the country to make changes to their core practices against their will.

2) Act like a twinkie once in awhile because you know its going to make your life way easier (and hell, even some decrepit white cultural norms have some value). Also, don't check Asian if you can avoid it because doing so is a dumb move.

Hmm you are resorting to personal attack now. The person I'm most grateful for in this country is my former Ph.D advisor ( a member of US academy of engineering) who really opened my eyes. I paid zero tuition for my graduate study and I suppose I should also be grateful for US tax payers. Well I do, but guess what, I earned my spot by beating my competitors fair and square (luckily for STEM majors in top graduate schools there is still fair competition), and my contributions to this country (tax included) far outweighed what I took. My life quality in this country may be better due to cleaner air, water and food but I can guarantee you similar job in China pays me even more and what makes you think I would want to stay in this country for ever? There are indeed people like me who intend to keep their promises when they applied for their US visas the first time that some day they would return to contribute to their home country with their knowledge.

It is hard for white American to be second class citizen in China because China didn't forcefully took people from US to build railroads in China.

I didn't know "we" were invited to the board of Harvard. Oh wait, we aren't. Elite institutions care about themselves, not the rest of use. Fairness is the last goddamn thing on their mind. They want to increase their power and influence, period. If they think Asians will do that, they will accept more Asians. If they think 1100 SAT blacks will do that, they will accept more 1100 SAT blacks. Stop thinking about these places like they are arbiters of fairness in society. Start thinking of them as self interested institutions full of self interested individuals with their own agendas.

Anecdotally, the filipinos/viets/burmese/etc I meet tend to be from ethnic chinese diaspora families who assimilated, changed their names etc. These are also the group that migrate to the states the most. So there isn't that much of a difference IQ wise.

Some Asian values are definitely superior to white values. I mentioned before that East Asian culture ruthlessly embraced meritocracy. I also pointed out that generally speaking East Asians tend to blame themselves for their shortcomings rather than bash others. For instance, if you ask an East Asian American why he or she is lagging behind a white American counterpart academically, the most likely explanations you are to hear are that they believe that they didn't work as hard as their white American counterpart or that they believe their white American counterpart is smarter. (Interestingly enough, you're likely to hear the first explanation far more often than the second.) If you ask blacks, Hispanics, or whites why they lag behind other groups academically you're likely to hear things like white privilege or East Asians being grinds, etc.

#1, #2, and #3 sound good. My guess is if more Asians had better verbal ability and came from families with IB connections, you'd see more Asians in IB and other more prestigious fields. Still, much Asian "mediocrity" can be explained by ability, motivation, and relation to the host culture.

Asians like STEM more, are better at it, and their culture values it more. One of the reasons STEM is so hard on Asians culturally is because in America they live within a host culture that doesn't value it. In China a STEM major can become the countries leader (since other Chinese value it). In America STEM is low status, and thus Asians become low status (because they are simply doing that they want to and are good at). So they are constantly reminded of their low status within the host culture, and there certainly seems to be some sensitivity around the poaching of females reducing the # of eligible Asian wives and leaving surplus Asian men (since a minority of Asian women select non Asian men that have higher status in the host culture).

So back to elite institutions. Elite institutions are all about outliers. Its the most important thing to the admissions process. Will shy, modest, Asian STEMs become world changing leaders at the same rate as whites from rich well connected families with a history of having the genes to be elite?

Shy, modest, Asian STEMs are great people. In fact, they make the world go round. And maybe one day a country run by them will overtake America in power and influence. But that ain't happening today, and if your making decisions about college, career, etc it ain't happening in time to effect your choices on those either. So make the best decisions you can for yourself today.

"Well I do, but guess what, I earned my spot by beating my competitors fair and square (luckily for STEM majors in top graduate schools there is still fair competition), and my contributions to this country (tax included) far outweighed what I took."

Kevin Rose, ingrate that he is, probably doesn't care about any of that. In his mind, you "displaced another equally qualified white male from your PhD program", someone who apparently was as smart mathematically as you, but just didn't want to deal with the boredom and drudgery of getting a STEM PhD. ;)

There seems to be this assumption that a guy can just go back to the motherland and pick up a village bride, and maybe that's fine for most dudes but not this one. I'd like someone that speaks my language natively (english) and comes from my (western) cultural background.

Whites are treated with great friendliness and respect in Asian countries, but are not given the same social, economic, or political opportunities that Asian immigrants receive in America. Not even close.

All the data I've seen show that most of the disparity arises from East Asian males and females who didn't grow up in the United States. IIRC some study a few years ago showed that amongst East Asians growing up in the United States, something like 41% of males married outside the race and 50% of females married outside the race.

Its not a personal attack its just a suggestion for why you seem so harsh towards a country that did not have to take you in but did and that you benefited from. Engineering jobs pay more in China? Who knew?

And if you could have received the same education in China why did you opt to get a visa and come to the US? Of course the US is not perfectly fair, no place is, but on the whole America has been pretty decent to Asian immigrants. I just dont understand this black and white view. Remember, America really did not have to accept immigrants - we did it out of a sense of (perhaps misguided) global nobless oblige and idealism. You seem to have this sense that you are owed more than you received in America, and yet it seems you were given great opportunity, an education, and fairer treatment than most of your countrymen have in their own country at the hands of their own co-ethnics.

Go to China by all means, but these days China is a cesspool of corruption and iniquity, so it is not at all clear that your children will have better opportunities there. And if they do, great for them, but for most Chinese the system sucks. And yet you are suggesting that the average Chinese has better opportunities in China than in the US.

Your positions seems so distorted and un-objective that I feel I have no choice but to look into to some fact about your personal life for an explanation.

Did the US take people from China to build railroads, or did they come voluntarily? And why should that mean that whites cannot be denied important economic and political rights in China today, or that they can be be excluded from important social connections necessary to success there? And why are 19th century attitudes towards Chinese laborers the pattern for what is now a totally different country?

I'd say Bobby Jindal has a not-minimal chance of becoming President, and he's Asian (though not East Asian obviously). Nikki Haley is another Asian (albeit Indian, like Jindal) who has succeeded at a high level in politics despite being an ethnic "other." I don't think this is due to any white preference for Indians over East Asians, but rather is attributable to cultural differences between the two. But it's good evidence that white Americans are not particularly tribal, at least in the modern era.

All other things being equal, I think most Americans would prefer a Christian Asian-American President to a Jewish President.

I actually think its a great thing that Asians are willing to do these jobs. I think what we are seeing today where smart whites and smart Asians are self-segregating into economic and intellectual niches they are both best suited for by intellect and temperament is one of the best things about a division of labour capitalist society like ours. Asians take the intellectual equivalent of gardening and house cleaning jobs Mexican immigrants take - as long as Asians are happy I see no cause of complaint. What worries me is that one day Asians will realize what a raw deal they are getting. That time is clearly not here yet, but it must come eventually.

But how many whites are really marrying Asians? I know that the vast majority of whites have little interest in Asian girls and that it is only a tiny niche market amongst whites - I cannot believe this is having a massive impact in the Asian community. I also see a certain amount of Asians dating and marrying white women and women of other races - perhaps it does not balance out completely but I think the problem is overstated in practical terms and is more of an ego/prestige thing.

I read lots of these kinds of stories. I know that most smart whites see Asians as merely intellectually competent, but lacking in real acuteness and unlikely to perform at a very high level in any intellectual field - its quite a widespread stereotype - and are certainly not threatened by them. But thats anecdotal.

What stories like these identify is the greater motivation Asians have to work really hard to acquire the superficial trappings of education rather than develop (or display evidence of possessing) the ability to think acutely and originally. White students just cant be bothered, so they flee. Its quite natural, and there really is a crisis of motivation amongst whites in the West today.

Like I already said, the modest, mostly spatial IQ advantage Asians have simply is not that threatening when you consider the number of intelligent whites in this country.

Dude, you are wildly jumping to conclusions. The Japanese herbivore problem is a product of modern social anomie in Japan, and not some timeless phenomena encoded in Asian genes. Thats whats so interesting about it - it is a quite recent development in response to a rapidly deteriorating state of affairs between the sexes in Japan, and there are HUGE signs that Western men are opting out of the dating market as well.

From the amount of sex for sale in Asia, and the popularity of keeping multiple mistresses, and the generally promiscuous nightlife there, I would say Asians have an extremely healthy sex drive.

True, but I don't think you can really identify a future Obama at age 17, despite the claims by admissions directors to the contrary. I think Michelle Obama's story (up until she married Barack) is much more typical of affirmative-action admits; people skills generally can't compensate for a 300-point SAT gap.

I realize reality is far from fair, but that does not mean I should not uphold notions of fairness. I think we as a society have a clear interest in having universities that have an utterly race blind and utterly meritocratic admissions systems. We have a problem in articulating criteria that will accurately predict Asian performance in the future, but whatever criteria we develop, we must appy it fairly.

That does not preclude me from agreeing with you that at the current point in time Asians are best served adapting to the system rather than complaining about its unfairness.

IMO the survey is picking up the expansion of the otaku subculture and its preferences for 2D over 3D. Which shouldn't be interpreted as lower sex drive but a frustrated one that is driven to imaginary substitutes.

I actually don't think I know any more than you really, probably got that impression from me being overconfident in comments on that earlier post on verbal-spatial IQ. And what I do "know" is really just my impressions.

I agree its probably mostly spatial strength. That just seems to go with mathematical strength and engineering ability a lot, and a lot more than I thought when we last discussed this, although I don't know if that is more a correlation due to history or due to a shared mechanism (males are good at spatial and math, Jewish people may break the link apart, as may Mongolians and other spatially gifted Native people in Siberia and North America who may not have high math ability despite at least the Mongolians beating the Chinese in spatial IQ, but the data on them is not very complete).

I think racial/cultural tendencies to low extraversion might be a push as well - it just seems like introverts would prefer more STEM-y subjects, more than groups with high extraversion like Ashkenazis or others. Although I have no data to base this on. Extraverts just seem more interested in people and human experiences in general. Sociology and psychology and English Literature as colonised by Marxism and critical theory respectively might not just be generally not very useful, but be an active brain drain on the more extraverted groups, who are harder to keep focused on things rather than people.

I'd expect the same to be true but more so of Agreeableness in terms of the empathizing facet rather than politeness and moral behaviour aspects of agreeableness (a la the empathizing/systematizing gap) but I don't know if there is a difference there between racial groups (there is between women and men).

Of course, Indian Americans are also very interested in STEM fields without a spatial bias (I don't think), so that's not really the whole story. And I don't think Indian Americans are anecdotally or otherwise an introverted group like East Asians. So I think there may be a factor involved where immigrants want to make money and rise in status rather than have a "college experience". Of course, that might be wholly confined to Indian Americans.

Interesting if that generalizes outside the anecdote. Probably less of a concern if so, although still harsh on those people who come from low performing "Oriental" groups if they are treated as part of a homogeneous Asian block.

I guess if true that suggests that Asian American SAT is closer to representative of East Asian/Chinese IQ under comparable circumstances to American Whites, mainly just boosted by smart Indians who are disproportionately selected from the upper end of the Indian spectrum, and maybe another boost (relative to White and Black and Hispanic Americans) from being from northern and coastal and urban areas of the US where scores are higher (I think).

Your right, I don't have comprehensive studies on the effect of test prep. I only have my own experience. Which includes not only my own experience but experience tutoring several kids at an Asian tutoring place and most of my high school peers who all did SAT cram. I could be wrong, but unless I'm shown overwhelming evidence I'm not going to reverse my position.

Well, since this thread still seems to be going strong, I think I'll add a few more additional remarks...

Various commenters have suggested that while China's top universities select their students based on fairly strict meritocracy, America's top universities use a mixture of meritocracy and "various other factors," and this seems like an accurate description. Furthermore, the elites of both countries are drawn very heavily from the graduates of those top universities.

Now I think a plausible theoretical case might be made for either of these methods of selecting elites, so perhaps we should examine the empirical evidence. Over the last few decades, China has achieved the greatest sustained rate of economic advancement and technological progress in the entire history of the human species. Meanwhile, during that same period, America has undergone major periods of severe economic stagnation, disastrous speculative bubbles of various kinds, and has witnessed the complete impoverishment of a substantial fraction of its total population, while suffering from huge government deficits and debts. Today, the American dollar and standard of living are solely maintained by enormous annual borrowing from China and various other countries, and if those loans were no longer forthcoming, American society would probably collapse. Various scholars have noted that this might be the first time in modern world history that a very wealthy nation with a low rate of growth has imported such large quantities of annual capital from a much less wealthy nation with much higher growth. These considerable differences in national trajectories may or may not be connected with the aforementioned methods of elite selection, but they do raise intriguing issues.

Here's another small datapoint. Most commenters are probably well aware that a few years back there was a gigantic scandal in China due to the discovery that some infant food companies were adulterating their product with various chemicals found to be harmful, and that this had been covered up by various government regulators. Several infants had died as a result, and the government responded with a major crackdown, including harsh sentences for the guilty parties and a couple of executions. This terrible scandal provides an excellent example of serious problems of corruption plaguing China's economy.

I suspect the commenters here may be less aware that around roughly the same time a somewhat similar problem was uncovered in America, in that a leading pharmaceutical company had spent years heavily marketing a pain-relief drug to the elderly, despite the fact that its internal studies had revealed that the drug also tended to produce a considerably increased risk of heart-attacks and death; once again, government regulators had helped to cover-up these problems. Official estimates are that America suffered over 50,000 premature deaths due to this, and that number may be a considerable underestimate. Government reaction was also strong, with a few officials being forced to resign, some executives forfeiting a portion of their annual multimillion-dollar bonuses, and the companies involved promised to be more careful in the future. Since the media and government devoted little attention to the scandal after the first couple of weeks, I'd suspect that 99% of the American public are today completely unaware that it ever even happened.

Presumably, if a meteor hit and totally destroyed Philadelphia but the media failed to report it, nobody would ever notice, though perhaps a few people might wonder why some of the sports leagues seemed to be missing a team here or there.

Offhand, it seems to me that countries completely controlled and run by their Ministries of Propaganda tend to encounter significant practical difficulties over time, but that's just my opinion.

That must be why someone named Thrasymachus in this Mangan thread related to the ADL, right? I've seen you comment regularly on both Mangan's blog and Steve Sailers.

"Thrasymachussaid...

Edwards is under the strange impression, like most conservatives of various varieties, that there is a "double standard". But as Paul Kersey says, their is just a standard. Some people can say whatever they want; others can say only what they are permitted, but should in general just keep their mouths shut. Truth has nothing to do with it either; telling the truth is actually a bad thing. One is supposed to say what is *supposed* to be true, because by believing something is true, and saying it is true, if you believe and say with enough conviction, it becomes true.

What's interesting about this comment is that American elite universities have become more, not less, merit focused. In 1950s all you needed to get into Harvard were gentlemen's Cs from Exeter and the right last name. The overall IQ and conscientiousness of Harvard grads is probably way up over the time period you note that America's elites have declined. Talking about the why and how of all that is more then I feel like getting into now, but your story is largely incomplete.

Also, I would consider expanding your definition of "merit". "Merit" isn't defined as the highest GPA or SATs. Its defined as a group of characteristics that institutions believe will lead to you assisting the institution achieve its goals.

Whether those characteristics are good for society or not is up for debate, but largely irrelevant. The values of Asian elites may one day allow that country to surpass American elites in power, but I don't think American elites give a damn. Assuming they aren't dead by the time that happens, they will still be elites, and being elites in a second string power would still be better then being non-elites in a first string power. Besides, the entire concept of elites is becoming global and cosmopolitan anyway, I doubt any American elites care about the decline of America enough to change their choices of how to live.

"It's very disappointing knowing that all of that sacrifice can be wasted because in the United States colleges will discriminate against your children simply based on the color of their skin."My brother is Korean and born in the US. His closest friends are white and black. He has a tattoo of the American flag. He's a greedy fcuk and really rich. Top 0.01%. He thinks he's smarter than Steve Jobs and the equal of Warren Buffet. He says he's experienced no discrimination in the business world and has been offered multiple top level positions in huge companies. He has an enormous ego despite being very mediocre intellectual. Sigma 1. About the level of the beauty queen from Alaska. Favorable with Perry, unfavorable with Romney. I think Chinese culture, Asian culture doesn't produce the mediocre success maniacs and consequently Asians have that "glass ceiling". Which is a loaded term because it seems like a simple barrier but is in fact related to culture, values, oneness of spirit and feeling with the powers that be. The takeaway is that you can be Asian and mediocre and "makeit" in business, but you have to have a kind of maniacal egoism that Asian culture doesn't produce or negates when in close contact.

Thrasy, you questioned orthodoxy. You requested, however mildly, with however many reservations, further evidence before believing Asians are the victims of malign whites. Big no-no. You questioned the One True Explanation. Yan is an enforcer. Of course you are a crazy nationalist neo Nazi blogger. What else could you possibly be, a man with a different opinion?

Kevin, you might want to move away from the narrative of white>asian due to some mysterious factors like IQ. From what I can see, much of it are cultural factors that allow for Americans in general to become more well-rounded individuals. The Asian approach does not foster individualism and creativity, where an American parent would encourage their children to pursue their passions, and be the best at whatever they want to do, Asian parents have more narrow focuses for their children. Their aim is generally good: secure, stable future, basic security being the most important things they look for, it however does not nurture greatness. Risk taking is minimized because of the greater need of the family. The down side to that is that society stagnates, without risk taking, exploration, curiosity, society never moves far forward with great ideas.

In the United States, Ideas are rewarded, innovation and technology has proved itself a much better return on investment then throwing endless amounts of hardwork at the problems of society. Working smart is always better than working hard. Problem solving and innovation is encouraged while Asian societies having such a rigid system of moving forward for people snuff out a lot of the outliers in society who would otherwise make progress, discover new things, new ideas.

It's a cultural boundary, not a genetic one, although culture and genetics feedsback on itself in many ways.

Many Asian Americans are critical of the Asian system as well, seeing the results that it creates, don't think for a second White Americans possess some kind of innate ability to produce greatness simply because of you're lack of melanin.

This sentiment is exactly why the US is doomed. The loyalty of our non-white populations--especially the chinese--will and should always be suspect. Oh, unless we stop treating them like "second-class citizens." Give me a break. Our diversity is not and has never been our strength.

Have you considered that your personal issues are not a good basis for making inferences about society as a whole? Seriously--you sound pathetic, and you make your family sound pathetic (which shows poor judgment on your part). I'm more inclined to attribute your observations to your particular psychological problems than to some inherent property of white male/asian female relations.

I have considered that possibility, but it does not add up. You have to realize that the greatest periods of Western innovation were ones where the culture was much more rigid and constricting than today - in fact, Western originality took a sharp nose dive precisely when the culture loosened up considerably (post 1960). So conditions in post 1960s America cannot really say much about Western originality. The West suffered under a religiously oppressive atmosphere that should have stifled innovation, but did not. Religion in the West was constantly fighting against originality. Originality in the West happened in spite of an oppressive intellectual climate, not because the culture was free. The liberalization you see today did not cause Western originality, it is a consequence of Western originality. It took centuries to fight for! You see, you have gotten your causality completely backwards.

And on the other hand, China was relatively free from the religious oppression of the West (Chinese religious was far more rational and enlightened), and intellectual work there was highly prized - yet in spite of this intellectually easy going climate, nothing much happened (relative to the West).

I am very skeptical of *culture* as an explanation of anything. It is just another way of saying *things are as they are*. In other words it is not an explanation at all. WHY should one culture be one way rather than another?

I also do not buy it as a factor for Asian non-performance. Asians have an incredible desire to do original work in the sciences and really in all intellectual fields, to compete with the West, and to burnish their positive self-image. Especially American Asians who are quite Americanized and not some kind of utterly alien mass. The desire is there, the cultural incentives are there, even the yearning is there - but it is not happening. And I see this as a huge cause of Asian frustration vis-a-vis whites.

Are you seriously going to tell me that Yan Shen does not have some kind of purely intellectual inferiority complex towards whites? He is constantly harping on how much smarter Asians are, on how whichever white person he is talking to is his intellectual inferior, etc, etc. He simply cannot talk to a white person without mentioning how much smarter Asians are and he himself is. It is a HUGE deal for him. Where does this come from if he does not feel threatened by whites intellectually? It is a VERY common Asian attitude.

But thats a digression.I dont buy into the idea that creativity is some kind of mysterious nexus between character and intellect. I think it is purely intellectual. Have you ever read accounts by really original people of how their ideas came o them? Often it *just came to them*, they just *saw* it. They could not help it. This one famous mathematician writes about he just stopped thinking about the problem and it *just came* to him. Creativity is obviously a purely intellectual faculty that we have as of yet no means of studying and that we do not understand it at all.And for some reason, it existed most so far in some Western people during some historical periods. Maybe this state of affairs is not timeless. Maybe Asians will evolve the intellectual faculty involved in creativity. Who knows? But what seems pretty certain is that it IS a purely intellectual ability, and it just exists in significantly lower numbers in Asians today

"""Many of my Asian friends were convinced that if you were Asian, you had to confirm you were smart. If you were white, you had to prove it," says Arar Han, a Monta Vista graduate who recently co-edited "Asian American X," a book of coming-of-age essays by young Asian-Americans."

See also...

"Ms. Gatley, the Monta Vista PTA president, is more blunt: "White kids are thought of as the dumb kids," she says.""

Apparently I'm far from the only Asian American who feels this way. Interestingly enough, many white Americans I know also seem to acknowledge that East Asians are smarter.

How cute! It's almost as if the two of you know one another, most likely from all of the white nationalist/neo-Nazi blogs that you both frequent. But shhhhh, I think your friend Thrasy doesn't seem to want be outted on Steve Hsu's blog here.

The first responsibility of American institutions is to its own citizens. Serving foreigners well is a very nice bonus, but doing the latter without the former is, in the long run, detrimental to everyone. For large t, which sum is greater: (i) 1 + 1.1 + 1.21 + 1.331 + ... + 1.1^t, or (ii) 5 + 4 + 3.2 + 2.56 + ... + 5 * (0.8^t)? I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine which expression reflects the *foreigner* utility yield of which policy, and why.

Most East Asians who have a problem with how they're treated in America should either relocate to East Asia, or think very hard about why they don't want to do that and focus their complaining on policies that disadvantage the future prospects of most whites as well as Asians (they should still have plenty of richly deserving targets).

I would certainly estimate the future of an East Asian with a very high SAT score with a noticeably *different* probability distribution than I'd use for a Westerner. However, despite the bias introduced by East Asian test prep culture, it's not at all clear to me that the latter distribution is "better" than the former. The best East Asians are currently beating the shit out of the West in some very important areas: consider e.g. Singaporean public policy.

I don't get it, why are you so convinced of this devastating Asian-American under-performance trope, Kevin? Looking at Asian-American nobel laureates, for example, they do fine compared to their population fraction. This seems to be the case in many other fields - over-represented amongst doctors, engineers, and many other intellectual professions. And why do you feel that STEM isn't "creative", anyway?

It's true that perhaps there are fewer Asian-American "rock stars" on American TV, or famous mega-CEOs, etc. But isn't that in part because the definition of a "rock star" is not talent, but fanbase? Talent is in the eye of the beholder.

There's a case in the lit. that EA's are somewhat less risk-taking/rebellious, sure, and thus less likely to become entrepreneurial or scientific black swans like Steve Jobs. But to extrapolate this, and frustrated feelings on the dating market, into whole-sale intellectual inferiority complexes in the common EA male over a gaping "creativity" void... it seems anecdotal and baseless. Too many Asian-American names end up on STEM articles; and however you feel about it, I think most people would disagree with you that scientific research is not "creative", to put it politely. Can you back your claim with any kind of non-anecdotal statistic measuring what you call "creativity"?

Being illoyal to your host group is just a dark way to live, foreigner or native.

My grandfather sometimes talked about his ambassador days, in China and elsewhere. His general conclusion was that Danes of good character generally adapted to their host country as loyal citizens with affinity for the host population, even if they retained their own identity. While Danes of less generous character, once transplanted, would become childishly bitter at their host group ("China", "white people", "my workplace", "my husbands side of the family", etc). There were always grievances to use as excuses for adopting a hateful attitude towards an entire group of people which you nonetheless stay with... it's one thing to have wrongs you want to improve, it's quite another to live among a group under pretense of being on their side, yet with malice in your heart, when nothing hinders your escape.

And everyone has slaves in their ancestry if you go far back enough. You can't just use that as an excuse for douchebaggery against random young human beings today, come on.

The thing is not to measure Asian Nobel Laureates against their percentage of the population but to measure it against their percentage of places in elite universities. Get it?

Its quite true that the number Asian Nobel Laureates is roughly in line with their percentage of the population (at least for the past 20 years), but that fact merely serves to underscore my point - Asians need a massively disproportionate presence in our elite universities in order to produce a number of Nobel Laureates that is merely equal to their percentage of the population. They are not producing at a level equal to the spaces they are taking up at the universities. In fact, the disproportion is even greater than suggested by that, since the Asian Nobels are all in STEM, and Asians take up even MORE space in STEM! See the difference?

Also, I am not saying all STEM is necessarily uncreative. Obviously you can be quite creative in science. Most of the fields you listed though, (engineering, medical) are PROFESSIONS, not intellectual fields. They do not require original thinking. I admit Asians are good at doing very well things that others have figured out. They merely are not so good at figuring out new things for themselves, and this is important to the intellectual life of our country, I think.

The REAL question is 1) In EVERY non-scientific field of interest to humanity, where are the Asian stars? (literature, sociology, anthropology, political science, etc, etc) Why does Steve Hsu when he writes about intellectual figures of importance to him always seem to be talking about non-Asians? 2) In the field of science, WHY are Asians taking up such an incredible amount of space in our elite institutions yet performing at a level that is at best equal to their share in the population?

If you care about the intellectual life of this country these questions are IMPORTANT.

Trust me, if the best writers were Asian, the best anthropologists, the best scientists, the best intellectuals, the best sociologists were all Asian (or at least a large share) NO ONE outside a few loony white nationalists would have any problem with Asians taking up all those spots in the unis. If Asians were making this incredibly rich contribution to the intellectual life of this country proportionate to their presence in the unis they would be celebrated and welcomed and cheered - they would be moving humanity forward. But it isnt happening - for some weird reason, if you eliminate the Asian component from our intellectual life aside from a few outliers like Terence Tao one would hardly notice.

And this MATTERS to our intellectual future, if we dont figure this out.

"The first responsibility of American institutions is to its own citizens. Serving foreigners well is a very nice bonus, but doing the latter without the former is, in the long run, detrimental to everyone."

Well said! My understanding is that most Asian Americans, including Steve Hsu, who complain about affirmative action with respect to undergraduate admissions, are in fact American citizens. So as a start, we can make sure that American college stop blatantly discriminating against a subset of their own citizens, the Asian American ones.

Yeah but its different. With Asians the argument is about their disappointing contribution to our national intellectual life compared to their massive presence in the universities - in other words its a meritocratic argument, not an argument for sacrificing meritocracy in order to have the right racial balances. We are just using a different metric of merit.

If whites were clamoring to keep Asian numbers down for social justice reasons and not meritocratic reasons than the parallel you are drawing would be valid. (not that whites are so clamoring. Heck even I am not. I am merely viewing the situation from all angles)

But I see the Asian perspective - as I have said, statistically if high IQ whites bothered to work harder and show up more than based on IQ differences the numbers of Asians on our campuses would be only mildly disproportionate to their share of the population, not massively disproportionate as it is today, and the universities would not have a problem. So why should Asians be faulted for whites laziness?

On the other hand, the incredible Asian capacity for hard work, which was the thing most noted about them by missionaries and other whites who came into extensive contact with Asians in the nineteenth century and is perhaps Asians most competitive asset, while an admirable quality, may have drawbacks and not be something we want whites to emulate too much. Just a thought.

"Increasing numbers of Asian-American college applicants understand the odds are stacked against them, and react by not declaring their ethnicity or (in the case of mixed race applicants) checking any box but Asian."

Example: Richard Feynman was rejected by Cornell because of the Jewish quota and went to MIT instead. The past is prologue.

If whites were really racists, why are they bending over backwards to admit NAMs? If they are really threatened, why do they accept Jews into elite institutions way out of proportion with their population?

As stated clearly in this thread, there are way better explanations then the idea there is some secret conspiracy by whitey to keep the yellow man down.

Look, I grew up in mixed race environment. I tried to adopt the better cultural aspects of those around me, including Asians and Jews, and add them to my own. That's how you grow as a person, and its supposed to the whole supposed benefit of living in diverse America.

Your opinion pains me because it's not going to solve anything. If its in elite institutions best interest not to take more Asians, they won't. No matter what law you pass, no matter what political group you champion, you can't overrule peoples incentives. If you actually wanted to be constructive you'd be teaching other Asians how they can learn from the successful cultural traits of people around them. However, you won't because like you accuse people of, your a racist. Asians are superior. Others are inferior. Nothing to learn here.

"If its in elite institutions best interest not to take more Asians, they won't. "

At one time, it wasn't in the interests of elite institutions to accept blacks or any people of color regardless. That was during a time when America was far more racist than it is now. What you seem to be arguing is that we should accept the criteria that elite institutions use, even if they seem woefully unjust. My position is to challenge the very criteria which elite colleges use for admissions, rather than simply accept the status quo.

" If they are really threatened, why do they accept Jews into elite institutions way out of proportion with their population?"

Actually the elite schools originally applied quotas to Jewish applicants as well in order to limit their numbers back in the day. This kind of behavior by gentile Europeans is nothing new.

"If you actually wanted to be constructive you'd be teaching other Asians how they can learn from the successful cultural traits of people around them."

Cultural traits like bashing another group more academically successful than your own rather than say actually figuring out what you can do to improve yourself?

Well, their goal is to increase their institutional influence and power. I'm not sure that is a "just" goal, but its a clear one. Given that goal, the criteria they use to judge Asian performance seems entirely just. Your lack of success is because Asian test and GPA performance is not translating to the kind of post grad success these institutions are looking for.

"Actually the elite schools originally applied quotas to Jewish applicants as well"

They also stopped doing this decades ago, and yet for some reason you think they are still doing this with Asians.

Elite institutions starting accepting Jews because they had to. Because it was the only way for those institutions to stay relevant, given the performance of Jews at the highest levels of our society. If they had to accept Asians, they would find a way. But they don't, because they don't need to accept Asians to remain relevant. If Asians start accomplishing things that make them relevant, they will accept more Asians.

"Cultural traits"

Cultural traits like everything I've mentioned already.

"whistleblowers"

Exactly what whistle are they blowing. That Asians need higher SAT scores. Wow, I read about that whistle decades ago in every single college admissions statistic ever published.

If you were listening you'd have heard the most important thing these people are saying, and that is WHY Asians are being "discriminated" against (their failings).

"there is basically nothing for East Asian Americans to learn from their black, Hispanic, or gentile European American counterparts."

Why would a US national in China (there are a ton of those) be loyal to his or her host in China? Be kind to your host, sure, but loyal? Even if there is a war between the two countries? (I hope there will never be one but a lot of Yahoo "nuke China" posters apparently don't think that way).

No one should be blindly loyal to the government which may or may not represent the interest of its people. In this sense Noam Chomsky may not be loyal to the US government, and I'm not loyal to the communist party in China. There are good people and bad people in every country, the difference is percentage. Frankly I don't think that percentage is higher in the US than in many other countries. Yes China is a "communist" country not worshipping God, but Steven Weinberg has a good quote "Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for good people to do bad things -- that takes religion."

"Being illoyal to your host group is just a dark way to live, foreigner or native."

Perhaps FanHsu would be more loyal to the United States if its elite institutions didn't blatantly discriminate against his children. To put it a bit crudely, it's hard to be entirely loyal to your host country when you're taking it up the ass from them. Many East Asian Americans are also annoyed by white Americans who incessantly bash them.

"it's one thing to have wrongs you want to improve, it's quite another to live among a group under pretense of being on their side, yet with malice in your heart"

There's no malice really. Most East Asian Americans love this country and get along fairly well with their black, Hispanic, and white counterparts. What they dislike are 1) being discriminated against and 2) being bashed. If those two things ended, I predict that there would be no racial animosity of any kind in this country involving East Asian Americans.

I really wouldn't get so worked up if I were you. The list of crazy and stupid things America is doing is so enormously long that the (obvious) policy of racial discrimination against Asians in elite university admissions is barely visible with a magnifying glass.

And it's absurd to claim that Christopher Chang "is hated and resented by millions of white Americans" for winning an IMO Gold Medal. Virtually no white (or non-white) Americans have ever even heard of Christopher Chang or the IMO, and wouldn't care one bit even if they had. Their personal envy is overwhelmingly directed toward people like Lindsey Lohan and Paris Hilton and all the big basketball and football stars. The main people jealous of an IMO Gold Medalist are those who just barely missed making the U.S. team, and I doubt they're the targets of your complaint.

"I really wouldn't get so worked up if I were you. The list of crazy and stupid things America is doing is so enormously long that the (obvious) policy of racial discrimination against Asians in elite university admissions is barely visible with a magnifying glass."

So what do you propose East Asian Americans do? Sit there quietly and take it up the ass? I seem to recall that the Jews, perhaps being more far verbally aggressive, actually did make a fuss about the discrimination they encountered. Perhaps that's something that East Asians should strive to emulate.

I have never suffered any "venomous hatred and vicious discrimination" from universities. Granted, my experience was just with Caltech and the UC system, which both have Asian-friendly reputations. But the UCs, at least, are huge. I don't think there is a severe shortage of academic opportunity for Asian-Americans.

My own reasons for being prepared to stay outside the US indefinitely (note that I am living in China now) lie elsewhere.

"I seem to recall that the Jews, perhaps being more far verbally aggressive, actually did make a fuss about the discrimination they encountered."

No, they excelled so much that colleges had no choice to accept them if they wanted to be relevant. Its not like all those racists WASPs got together and decided to stop being racists because some Jews complained.

"In 1922, Harvard's president, A. Lawrence Lowell, proposed a quota on the number of Jews gaining admission to the university. Lowell was convinced that Harvard could only survive if the majority of its students came from old American stock."

"Lowell received a great deal of public criticism, particularly in the Boston press. Harvard's overseers appointed a 13-member committee, which included three Jews, to study the university's “Jewish problem.” The committee rejected a Jewish quota but agreed that “geographic diversity” in the student body was desirable. Harvard had been using a competitive exam to determine who was admitted, and urban Jewish students were scoring highly on the exam. Urban public schools such as Boston Latin Academy intensely prepared their students, many of whom were Jewish, to pass Harvard's admissions test. The special committee recommended that the competitive exam be replaced by an admissions policy that accepted top-ranking students from around the nation, regardless of exam scores."

Right, so Yan Shen is clearly an ethnic chauvinist, although to be fair of the softer kind. Its a really really big deal for him to think that Asians are intellectually superior to whites in every last possible way. He just cant handle it that in important ways - maybe the most important ways - Asians consistently underperform whites intellectually. If you derive your entire self-esteem and self-image from this notion that your group is better on this particular measure than another group, you are just not going to be able to handle evidence that shows that in important key aspects of this measure your group actually woefully underperforms the group you are supposed to be better than. People dont handle threats to their egos very well.

You gotta be sympathetic to that. Anyone who knows anything about Chinese culture knows that it inculcates an incredible sense of the specialness, and particularly the intellectual specialness, of Chinese people. To see themselves as clever is something of a religion amongst the Chinese. Now, to discover that no matter how hard you work, no matter how much you strain, this other group that is lazier than you and in certain ways not as clever as you will still consistently outperform you intellectually, and is just more clever than you in certain other key respects......well, that is just incredibly galling. Not everyone can handle that.

I am convinced this is at the source of much Asian bitterness. In my view this Chinese sense of themselves as intellectually special serves them ill and leads to psychological problems - if they just begin to let go of this idea of themselves, and maybe develop a more sophisticated notion of themselves as a very capable and intelligent people fully worthy of respect but that is nevertheless just not as clever or capable as they had wished to believe themselves, things would get better.

And I think that will eventually happen, and Asians will eventually stop being bitter with themselves and accept their position vis a vis whites more and more. As the decades pass and all that hard work continues to not produce Asian geniuses in large numbers an adjustment to reality will have to take place. Right now Asians are still in the *competition phase*. Ironically, because whites are almost not showing up to the competition. But competition breeds bitterness. I like to think the Chinese will eventually mellow out like the Japanese, who had their *competition with the West*, and who no longer care to prove anything.

Then we will see less Yan Shens with their talk of how wonderfully smart they are and maybe whites and Asians can get along better.

Kevin, I don't have anything backwards. Do you not know that thing call Filial piety? I don't think you fully appreciate the pressures to conform in Asian societies to the extent I have. People are not free to be themselves, their actions, motivations is always superseded by the need of the family. You are not Asian, if you were born into Asian society, I guarantee you, you would not become who you are today. I've seen far too many westernized Asians, myself included, who doesn't fit your mold of a typical book grind. It is you who is leaping to conclusions with regard to cause and effects of the things.

I'm not going to even get into History, being that it becomes a game of what if...There are simply too many variable to consider, would western society flourished had Islam fully succeeded in invading Europe? Could the West have done without the Vast expanse of resources of the Americas? How you even pretend to know the answer to such a complex problem and assuming causal nature of anything for anything else in this Vast puzzle of history I don't even know.

And lastly, I couldn't care if not a single Asian makes it into Harvard, I don't have any such inferiority complex that you ascribe as typical to Asians. Being Asian American, I don't see any such compulsion to PROVE to white people we are not inferior. You talk as if White and Asians are a two distinct mass. No human population is as you describe. The great thing about Western civilization is it allows for diversity, individuals are not homogenous. FanHsu and Yan shen probably grew up in Asia, hence the need to defend one's pride, it's call Saving face. This is one example I can point to Asia is deficient. The need to save face, doesn't address problems, intellectually it's dishonest, and it never solves any problems. Westerners confront problems, especially those train in the science, to see truth as it is is the only way to understand the nature of it. I caution you in your train of thought.

As for genius, yes, I'm very familiar with Great thinkers. Einstein is the example I always think of, but also many other who had their inspiration in their dreams. Creativity is not as clear cut as genetic predisposition, the fact that you mention this tells me you haven't thought this all the way through. These thinkers were thinking about these Ideas for a long time, they had time to incubate their thoughts, they had free time to think about those things to begin with and an intellectually stimulating environment. Do you think Asians have even half these things?

As for University admissions, I could care less, if the Universities can weed out the grinds from those who are truly exceptional, I fully support whatever steps they take to ensure only the very brightest and gifted are allowed admissions. I trust our higher education system in taking on a fair and honest approach to filling the seats of our Universities with whoever they choose to.

All I have to say about this drawn out line of thought of yours is that you are over reaching. Grab onto something concrete and try laying your argument out one by one before you sound like white supremacist.

We are all in search of truth, whether we like what we see or not. I don't care if Asians really are not capable of creativity. I'd really like to know how the mind ticks and I'm not afraid to find out the answer. I've had to accept far worst truths in life, this is childs play.

Perhaps you should try seeing things from the POV of the country you have decided to immigrate to (or your family decided). We have a perspective too, and it might help you to put aside the racial POV and see it from a larger human POV. First of all, most whites would agree that compared to Asians we dont work as hard rather than deny it as you claim we do, and thats just it - we dont want to work as hard!

Dont you get it? What is happening is that Asians are immigrating and forcing whites to work incredibly hard for very little reward to stay competitive, and whites are saying, screw it, its not worth it. Asian culture and white culture are DIFFERENT. We dont value ALL the same things you do, and you are forcing us to ADAPT to YOU.

Now, I am not saying you are doing this deliberately - you are just being yourselves, but we dont wish to be like you in that particular respect. We feel we have gotten an incredible amount of intellectual mileage out of much less work than you, in some ways, and in some cases, we have done things you, with all your hard work, have not been able to do. And that is the crux of the issue.

Now try and understand this - we actually think that our unwillingness to grind way at boring tasks might be bound up with our ability to be original, and we dont want to lose that. So you have come and created a situation where in order to compete with you we might have to give up what is most special about us, our unique character and personality, and compromise our unique ability profile.

You are forcing us to CHANGE and become like you, but we like ourselves the way we are. We dont want to be hard working well behaved types. We want to be intellectual rebels and mavericks. We respect and admire you for being the hard working well behaved type, but those are not our goals. And trust me, that we remain intellectual rebels and mavericks is good for YOU Asians too - it is good for humanity.

So you have thrown us a curveball, and instead of seeing things from a larger POV you insist on remaining stuck in the narrowly selfish racial POV where all you care about is that your group gets yours.

I think you have a pretty mature and well thought out position, and I thank you for sharing that. I wish more Asians were like you and not Yan Shen. You sound like you very healthily adapted to conditions to America and have no inferiority complex towards whites.

I am a big believer in HBD, and do think most group differences have to be explained in terms of that, so I search for conclusions that fit in with that as well as all the facts as I know and understand them. But I am certainly not a *white nationalist* - I like Asian people and have no wish to return to an all-white country, nor do I believe any such silliness as that every white person is a creative genius while every Asian person a drudge. I believe Asians make valuable contributions to this country, but also pose certain unique challenges that are just beginning to be understood. I am just pointing out average group differences, which will have to be considered more and more when we consider public policy in this country. On the individual level it matters not at all - but in terms of public policy, group averages matter.

Well, if you're arguing that maybe 5-10% of American whites significantly dislike Asians, I might not disagree with that. But doesn't that also mean that 90-95% of whites get along pretty well with Asians? And would that number be so much lower than for all sorts of various other ethnic-pairwise relationships?

Anyway, if you look at the individuals responsible for establishing and maintaining the obvious pattern of anti-Asian racial discrimination at elite universities (which was your main complaint), I'd bet that virtually none of them even remotely fall into your category of disliking Asians. It's just that they prefer to allocate the scarce resource of admissions slots to various other groups for various reasons, sometimes including explicit financial bribes.

"I'd bet that virtually none of them even remotely fall into your category of disliking Asians."

IIRC, Steve Hsu has linked to articles detailing how people with intimate knowledge of the college admissions system have observed that college admissions officers routinely stereotype Asian Americans in a rather negative fashion. I would characterize this as animus bordering on racial dislike.

http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2001/09/flanagan.htmIf anything, I would say admissions officers have more of an issue with striving middle classers than with East Asians [i]sensu stricto[/i].

MATTHEW MONIZ bailed out of engineering at Notre Dame in the fall of his sophomore year. He had been the kind of recruit most engineering departments dream about. He had scored an 800 in math on the SAT and in the 700s in both reading and writing. He also had taken Calculus BC and five other Advanced Placement courses at a prep school in Washington, D.C., and had long planned to major in engineering.But as Mr. Moniz sat in his mechanics class in 2009, he realized he had already had enough. “I was trying to memorize equations, and engineering’s all about the application, which they really didn’t teach too well,” he says. “It was just like, ‘Do these practice problems, then you’re on your own.’ ” And as he looked ahead at the curriculum, he did not see much relief on the horizon.So Mr. Moniz, a 21-year-old who likes poetry and had enjoyed introductory psychology, switched to a double major in psychology and English, where the classes are “a lot more discussion based.” He will graduate in May and plans to be a clinical psychologist. Of his four freshman buddies at Notre Dame, one switched to business, another to music. One of the two who is still in engineering plans to work in finance after graduation.from here http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/education/edlife/why-science-majors-change-their-mind-its-just-so-darn-hard.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all

America is currently declining. If this continues for a few more decades, it will no longer matter how well East Asians are treated in it because it won't be a better place to live than East Asia.

In order for this decline to be stopped, the political system needs to return to serving the interests of the American middle class. This is already unlikely, but by joining the racial spoils game, you further decrease the probability of such a thing happening (especially in a way that doesn't involve middle class whites turning against all other races).

Again, we're talking about white racism exclusively."Espenshade found that Asian-Americans needed a 1550 SAT to have an equal chance of getting into an elite college as white students with a 1410 or black students with an 1100."Does anybody notice the 1100 number here? Everyone is fine with that, that's not racism?First of all, why is it wrong for someone with mixed heritage to take one side or the other? Why is it wrong for a mix between white and Asian to declare him/her self as white, but it's perfectly fine to declare as Asian? Why is it that mix between white and black always gives "African American"?If there is any problem for a given race, the sole responsibility is on whites. For example, the author is not bothered with 1100 black representation, or with Hispanic one that was not given. The author is not bothered with mix between Asian and black calling them their self as "African American", or the same as white/black combination.If you look at government/administration jobs, blacks are extremely over represented. So please, if we're talking about discrimination (if assumed that we're talking about American citizens), and this sure is a discrimination, it's not just white's fault. Kids going to collage today had nothing to do with slavery 150 years ago, stop blaming the whites for everything.Someone is saying that "Asians have this or that personality issues". I can live with that, surely that on average there are some population traits that would lower down the impact of good SAT scorers. But we have to ask our selfs a question:"Would a black or Hispanic with SAT 2140 be turned down by the collage based on their bad personality?"I guess if that happened that would have the same news/government/lefties response as 9/11 did.THAT is the real problem, that is the real discrimination. The racism is institutionalized in USA, it favors blacks, mixed blacks, Hispanics.Oh, and would you look at this:http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/wanted/topTenFugitives.htm#most of them are "white male"... but look at their names, look at their faces. Now think about a situation, where a blonde, blue eyed massive killer was pestered as "Hispanic male"...

East Asians need to stop the complaining about America. They already get much more (in a good way) than they already deserve. I'm a recent law graduate, and in law there seems to be some affirmative action for Asians. I know some who were offered good jobs by this route, while I'm unemployed. Basically, they got jobs because while my family has been here for 150 years, theirs just arrived a few decades ago or whatever. And one thing law LOVES is "diversity."

Asians aren't discriminated against at colleges. They already have numbers vastly higher than their share of the population, even with the fact that athletic recruits and legacies are almost all white. Where's the complaint? Elite colleges don't only admit based on SAT scores. If that's what you want, go the fuck home. You didn't build our culture. You didn't start our universities. You come here to our country and expect to be handed the keys to our biggest castle, and then whine when it takes some time. Show some respect.

You belong in science technology occupations, and we're glad to have you there. You'll live good lives in comfort. But you've done nothing (and don't really have the attributes) to achieve power and influence here - JUST AS I would not be able to in an Asian country. Why should white Americans always be the ones to step back and make room for others' success? Where's my success? I've worked hard and don't have connections, just like you. I try not to complain but when sneaky, cutthroat Asians come here demanding our jobs, our women, and our power, I say get out. And more and more Americans are starting to agree.

You're discriminated against? Please shut the fuck up, whiny Asian. You make more money than whites on average and you get into best colleges at very high rates. We don't want you as community organizers. We want you as engineers. Otherwise, we don't want you.

Having children of mixed descent (european/chinese) I find this discussion interesting. Not surprisingly, people are rather emotionally invested.

Personally, I prefer to see things though the prism of sociobiology. I think it's pretty obvious that, on average, Asians (in particular Chinese) present with higher g values. I've always liked brainy women, mostly Asian (a couple Jewish - too unstable) and so i had children with the one who is much smarter than me. Why was she willing to go along? Well, brains are critical, and I'm not exactly stupid (maybe 1-2SD+). But in biology there is this phenomenon called http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antagonistic_pleiotropy_hypothesis. At some point, you start seeing negative returns on a genotype.

This is why also why you see these odd evolutionary developments. For example, why should testes evolve to be outside of the body where they risk existential threats? Sure, sperm need to stay cool, but couldn't they evolve to be like ovaries? Much safer. Perhaps it had evolutionary benefit to show that you can swing a pair with impunity. Now, it's all very coarse, but it seems pretty obvious that this weighs somewhat in the evolutionary calculus, even though almost everyone would deny it at the conscious level.

On a couple of occasions I noticed with my wife's friends husbands an inexplicable antagonism. I would try to engage them on their field of research, get them talking about their subject, and the reaction would be like i just farted or something. But maybe it's just me.